From Zen basketball team to mountaintop tribe — this is the True Light Beaver Story.

Back in the Summer of '66, when family still meant nuclear, and our heads were into dope, and reclaiming the city streets with flowers, love, and costumes, the True Light Beavers were born, delivered on a back shelf of Moe's Discount Mart. Susan Beaver used to shop at Moe's for old football jerseys, basketball shirts, and the like, finding the beautiful colors and nice slogans (Courtesy Taxi) just right for decorating body and soul. Her real find was a batch of nine basketball jerseys, white and shiny green, with the words True Light Beavers emblazoned on the front. (The True Light Beavers, we discovered years later, were a defunct Zen Buddhist Basketball team from Chinatown.) We found the name fitting and symbolic of just about everything. Instantly, the shirts were passed out among friends, and True Light Beavers started showing up at sweep-ins, ESSO meetings, psychedelic .showcases, be-ins, and finally, at the raising of the Pentagon. When the Pentagon was raised, so were many consciousnesses, and flowers and costumes started being replaced by flags and overalls. A big exodus started taking place: some flower kids tookofffor Chicago (Yippie!), others for the woods; some dropping out, some digging in.

The True Light Beavers dug in! From a nuclear family of four in New York and three its Boston, the True Light Beavers became seven in the woods of New Hampshire. Brothers and sisters moving together, we became a clan of ignorant Indians, learning, that first year, how much we didn't know. Life-art is where we're at, and that year inNew Hampshire meant a lot of life-art dealing with heating a house, making a garden, stringing beads, doing some movies, and a lot of drawing. We grew close in New Hampshire, brothers rediscovering each other, sisters working it out, all of us, with the kids, making it work. We learned a little bit to read the seasons and interpret the messages, we learned a bit that to make the revolutionary alternative first meant getting ourselves together . . . . New Hampshire got the clan together, a new order came into being, and we flashed that we were at the beginning of the biggest trip we've ever taken.

To Woodstock! And we become more of what we are: energy artists! The new lessons that began in New Hampshire are continued here: we learn new skills, develop new tools. The progession of the seasons now forms a strong rhythm for our lives, with spring devoted to gardens, chickens, a new baby, and plans; summer busy building new systems; fall, harvesting and getting ready for winter, which becomes less isolating because of the new community of many clans growing and living around us. We find new needs and meet them with a school, a switchboard, new medicine, food sharing, trading, new communication systems, more land, earth people buildings, and suddenly we find ourselves a tribe expanded to eighteen on a mountaintop. And going further! We find, as we build, builders all around us . . . a tribe on every mountaintop. The years of digging in and learning are now producing so many new life ways that are just now beginning to trade and expand and be together cooperatively.

So here it is from us to you: our first collection of many ways from many tribes . . . new tools, workable systems, shared thoughts, and warm foods which have nourished and fed us all for many years and which will give us all the energy to go further.

5 Rock City Road

All things have need of nourishment from above. But the gift of food comes in its own time, and for this one must wait. The I Ching's fifth hexagram (above: the abysmal water, below: the creative, heaven) shows the clouds in the heavens with food and drink. The rain will come in its own time. We cannot make it come; we have to wait for it. The idea of waiting is further suggested by the attributes of the two trigrams . . . strength within, danger in front. Strength in the face of danger does not plunge ahead but bides its time, whereas weakness in the face of danger grows agitated and has not the patience to wait.

THE IMAGE

Clouds rise up to heaven:The image of WAITING.Thus the superior man eats and drinks,Is joyous and of good cheer.

When clouds rise in the sky, it is a sign that it will rain. There is nothing to do but to wait until the rain falls. It is the same in life when destiny is at work. We should not worry and seek to shape the future by interfering in things before the time is ripe. We should quietly fortify the body with food and drink and the mind with gladness and good cheer. Fate comes when it will, and thus we are ready.

No one could ever agree on a name for the restaurant, so it just got called by its address. I guess that's pretty cosmic because the number 5 hexagram in the I Chingmeans waiting (nourishment); so it will be 5 Rock City Road. I don't really know how to put a restaurant together from scratch . . . I only try to keep turning out food that people can get feeling high from, and it's not hard when you use the food I do. It is all good whole grains and as much organic produce as we can find or grow ourselves.

The restaurant family has fluctuated a lot in the year that I've been here and every new person who comes to help brings strong energy to continue the work the family has started. Those who don't really want to contribute, well, they usually get bored and leave, or if they can't seem to make the move, someone in the family gives them a nudge to help them along. I know this restaurant can't work unless everyone involved is consciously aware of the work necessary to keep flowing smoothly. We have had so many meetings about this, and it is the biggest problem for everyone to work out. The hardest role to play in these family games is the decision-maker or foreman or whatever you want to call it (maybe wagonmaster). You've got to work out a way to keep your spiritual self alive, strong enough to order people, and still be detached from the role of ordering. Staying high has been the hardest thing to work out for all of us. We have the dualism of wanting to split for the woods and yet we don't know enough to live out there very long without the society which has so heavily imprinted us . . . it's not good or bad, it just is. We keep trying to confront each other when a personality "wiggle" happens, but sometimes you can get real knotted up inside and the trouble builds pressure . . . you want to say something about something to someone, but all of a sudden you wonder if maybe it's not your ego coloring your perception of a friend's actions, and you keep it inside to protect yourself from being wrong. Well, that's when it's got to blow, so you can get it out of your head where you can see it. And that's what we're doing, and when we're not doing that, we have this restaurant.

Now there's something I really like to do and that is cook, and I can do as much as I like at the restaurant. When I started cooking, I didn't know the first thing about the food . . . I knew how to cook brown rice and beans (pretty basic) but I read a whole bunch of books and pamphlets that people had lying around and got an understanding of what was going on. I could never, hardly ever, use the books directly, though, because we never had a lot of things in the recipes, so I had to sort of alter things until I finally got more into altering than into reading, which is just like making it up as you go along. Everyone who cooked at 5 Rock City got great at doing just about anything in the world with carrots and onions and squash. Anyway, enough of this rambling . . . what I really want to say is I'm a cook and I dig it, and I've found some things I'd like to pass on. And if you don't cook, I'd just like to mention that it isn't hard to make really good food, so I've tried to make it all as simple to understand as it really is . . . and these things don't taste bad either. All the recipes are from the 5 Rock City Road Cooks' Book, which is not yet published in its entirety mainly because it hasn't been in its entirety yet, but which is slowly being published in fragments in different literary works. At any rate, here is a cross section of secret recipes never before revealed to the public.

Soup Recipes

Let's begin with soup; it's good for you and it is cheap, two admirable qualities.

Cut veggies, heat 1 tablespoon oil, and toss in onion, stirring until it begins to get soft. Add carrot and simmer with cover in their own juice 1 to 2 minutes. Throw in celery, cabbage, and almonds and stir together a minute. Add 1 1/2 quarts of water and bring to a simmering boil for about 15 minutes. Make a smooth paste from miso by adding a little water :: . mixing. Turn off soup and cool slightly, then add miso tamari to taste. (Miso has natural digestive agents which shouldn't be boiled because it destroys their properties. Also: Soak a long strand of wakame seaweed for 20 minutes cut it into strips, and sauté with vegetables before adding water. Seaweed is a natural source of calcium, vitamin D, some vitamin A, K, and over 30 essential minerals necessary for feeling and being healthy.

Add split peas to boiling water, cover, and let simmer 1 hour. Add wakame and onion and salt and let simmer, covered, until of creamy consistency . . . about 30 more minutes. Turn off flame and add tahini, stirring it in until smooth. That's all. Unless you want to add tamari for a little different flavor. After soup come a few simple grain dishes.

Mix all ingredients together and add enough water to make a sticky batter. Spread enough batter on lightly greased skillet to make desired size of patties. Cook over medium flame until golden on both sides and done in middle. Eat hot or cold. They are great for traveling.

Mix all ingredients and add enough water to make somewhat sticky dough. Dip hands into cold water, shape dough into little balls, and fry in deep oil until crisp and golden. These are good to take on trips too. When forming balls, add a sliver of umeboshi (Japanese salted plums), chopped, to each . . . this acts as a natural preservative which will enable you to keep the food for days.

CORNMEAL MUSH

Serves 4

This is something not many people eat or even know about, so I want to bring it up so more people will try it.

Mix cornmeal with cold water and drop into salted boiling water, stirring until smooth. Turn flame as low as possible, cover, and let bubble until creamy . . . 10 to 15 minutes. Serve it sweet with honey and butter if you are into that, or with sesame salt if you are not into sweets.

Roll half of pie dough to fit 9-inch pie pan. Heat about 1 tablespoon oil and toss in onions, stirring until they begin to get soft. Add other vegetables, stir together, turn flame to low, cover and steam 2 to 3 minutes. Add tamari and pile into bottom crust. Roll out second crust and cover pie, pressing edges with thumbs for sealing. Sprinkle top with sesame seeds, after brushing crust with oil. Bake in 350° oven until crust is golden brown . . . about 30 minutes. †Pie Dough: Measure 3 cups whole wheat pastry flour into bowl, then add 1 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons oil. A little at a time, add cold water and mix with hands until a firm but workable dough forms. Roll on floured surface.

Wash dulse well, as it is salty, and chop. Mix all ingredients together and add dressing. Dressing: 1/2 cup oil (sesame and sunflower are best and unfortunately also most expensive, but use what you've got), juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 cup water and 2 tablespoons tamari. Mix and pour over salad and then toss.

Either toss everything in a blender and whip about 30 seconds, or put in bowl and whip with eggbeater or wire whip. During the winter we make vegetable tempura at the restaurant. One of the favorite ways to make it is what we call "vegetananda."

Mix vegetables with tempura batter and drop into oil heated to 350°. Never let oil smoke as it is much too hot then. Use a large wooden spoon for dropping, allow to get golden on one side, then turn and do same to other. Remove from oil and drain well to remove excess oil. Serve with Ginger-Tamari Sauce.† Basic Tempura Batter (eggless): Mix together 2 cups soy powder, 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, 1 cup corn flour or finely ground cornmeal, salt to taste, and 5 cups water. Batter should be as cold as possible for best tempura. †G inger-Tamari Sauce: 1 cup water, 3 tablespoons tamari, and 1 tablespoon grated ginger. Whip together in blender or shake together in jar and sit in refrig an hour or two. Dip vegetanandas in sauce and eat.

Mix everything but water together until well blended. Add water until dough is sticky and feels like patting a fat stomach. Cover and let sit in warm place overnight. Put in oiled bread pan and run knife around edges to keep from sticking. Put in cold oven and turn on to 350°, baking until done through . . . 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (It should look golden and not feel soft when squeezed with your fingers.) Remove from pan by hitting end of bread pan flat on hard surface and turning bread out into other hand. Cool before cutting. Serve with miso-tahini spread: walnut-sized piece miso softened with a little water, about 3 times as much tahini (it's up to you how strongly miso you want it), then mix together to smooth paste. This is a basic recipe to which can be added minced onions or parsley, or garlic, sprouts, grated carrots, any number of things.

Mix all ingredients but water until blended. Add water until dough is sticky enough to roll into little ping-pong ball-sized pieces. Do this by dipping your hands in cold water and rolling in in palms. Bake in 375° oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden.EGGLESS FRENCH TOAST

Sauce Recipes

Dry-roast sesame seeds until golden and crumbly when rubbed between fingers. Add flour and oil and roast flour, . stirring constantly, about 5 minutes over medium heat. Slowly add water, whipping all the time with a wire whip (this is the best tool I know to get unlumpy sauce, and they're cheap). Stir with whip until sauce comes to boil and is thick. Turn off and allow to cool a few minutes before adding tamari to taste. This is one of the best grain sauces, vegetable sauces, and just about everything sauces I've found.

Sauté onion lightly in oil, add tahini and mix and then add water, slowly beating with wire whip until smooth and thick. If, too thick for you, add more water . . . if too thin, add more tahini. Put in tamari to taste and serve on grain or vegetables.

The Special Things I Like Best to Make

LYNN'S ADZUKI PIZZA(As opposed to the many other ones I've seen written somewhere)

Drain adzuki beans, saving juice. While they drain, chop vegetables and grate cheese. Grind beans through a meat grinder (it's really worth it to get a meat grinder to make your own meat substitutes because the canned stuff is usually garbage). Put 1 tablespoon of the oil into pan and sauté garlic, onion, and green pepper slightly, then add ground adzuki beans and remaining oil and also herbs, salt, and tamari to taste. Stir together a few minutes over medium-high flame, add about 2 cups of water from soaked adzukis, stir, turn down flame, and cover, letting it cook until water is absorbed. If beans still seem a little hard, add another cup of water and cook a little longer . . . they should have a rough texture, not be mushy. Spread this mixture onto cookie sheet lined with pizza dough. Top with grated cheese and bake at 375° for 20 minutes.

†Pizza Dough: Soften 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast in 1 cup warm water and add 1 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons oil. Mix in 3 to 4 cups, whole wheat flour until soft and elastic. Knead a short while and set in warm place, covered, to rise . . . about 1 hour. When risen, punch down, let it rest 10 to 20 minutes, and press onto greased cookie sheet or pizza pan or large iron skillet.

If you're not into pizza, use the same dough and filling, only roll or press balls of dough into circles and fill with the bean stuff and cheese, fold over, press edges with fork, put on greased cookie sheet, brush with oil and bake 20 to 35 minutes at 350°.

Mix all ingredients except nori together with tamari to taste. Roll up in squares of nori and place on oiled sheet to bake for 25 minutes at 400°. Cool and eat, or eat hot. If you want to take these traveling, chop umeboshi slivers in each roll as a preservative.

"Plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, stupor, and countless other appropriate responses to stimuli are as universal in plants as in animals.,"

J.C. Bose, India's great scientist

Berry Picking in the Wild

Awareness of the seasons becomes so acute as to become awareness of what berries are ripening in what meadow, on what slope, under what bridge, at what time. Nature still provides enormous quantities of wild berries: strawberries in late June, early July; blueberries in July; red raspberries early in August; blackberries late in August. To gather the berries, you should know where to look for them, then keep constant watch on the spot for the moment of ripening.

Last summer was one stoned venture after another into meadows, checking out the main blackberry patch every three days to see if those red ones last week were black yet. We often raced against storms, bears and birds to get to the berries, and in time, developed some pretty sophisticated and very stoned, gathering techniques.

Meadow picking is pretty easy . . . if you can get there before the bear and deer do. Late afternoon is a nice time to go berrying. It ends the day nicely and means that the berries have had a full day of sunlight to aid in ripening. When we pick, we go to the meadow first, picking the ripe berries, and making mental notes of berry bushes still to ripen. At the height of the blackberry season, we hit the same meadow every three days, getting at least 10 quarts of berries in just two hours of picking each time. But that's not the half of it. Meadow picking is merely an introduction into the pleasures of berrying. To the intrepid picker, there are many ways of getting to those hidden berries at the sides of roads or down slopes.

Susan is our champion road picker. Driving up to and down from the meadow on the dirt road, Susan spies a bush here, another bush there of ripening berries. "Stop the car," she shouts excitedly, "we really can't pass over that bush." Hence begins Susan's road trip . . . a slow drive up and down the three miles of dirt road, with stops every few minutes to gather the fruit from solitary bushes that eagle-eye Susan has seen off in the woods. No one can match Susan's eyesight, nor the speed with which she bounds out of and back into the car. Nor can anyone ridicule her favorite method of gathering berries, because it, too, yields berries by the gallon.

Colleen's theory is that if you look for berries in the most difficult-to-reach spot, you'll find them in great abundance. "After all," she reasons, "there isn't an animal in the forest stupid or brave enough to go through what I go through to get to those berries." Dressed in long pants, hiking boots, and a leather shirt, hair tied back, Colleen climbs down impossibly steep slopes and works her way into the bushes going up the slopes. This means numerous falls and incredible hangups in bushes that snag and tear at any available piece of loose clothing or hair, but it also means getting at bushes that haven't been touched all summer and are consequently overloaded with berries.

Whatever way you dig doing berries, do it. It helps, though, to wear clothes that will protect you from scratches and at the same time won't get snagged. Long denim pants, longsleeved shirts, leather jackets, and maybe even gloves are good protective articles of clothing . . . scarves, hats, bound-up hair, keep thorns from tearing at your hair. It's nice to have both hands free, either for getting at berries, or for disentangling yourself from bushes. So punch a couple of holes in some coffee cans, thread some string through the holes, and tie the cans around your waist. Climb hills, work your way through meadows, and dig on the sun, grasses, bees, flowers, and berries.

Salads and Salad Dressing Recipes

BETSYE'S SALAD GAME

Spinach BananasNutsMushroomsCucumbersOnions

Dressing:Lime juiceGood-tasting oilSalt and pepperAny spices you think of

Note: if you have dregs of ketchup in a bottle that you can't get out, just mix the dressing in the bottle, omitting the ketchup, as the ketchup in the bottle takes care of it. It cleans out the bottles, which, by the way, make attractive salad dressing servers.

APPLE CIDER DRESSING

This dressing, being very sweet, is great over salads which include melon, apple, cabbage, peas, green beans, in addition to the regular lettuce and tomato.

With a whisk, beat mustard into egg yolks. Slowly add oil so you keep a constant texture. Soon, as more oil gets in, it will begin to thicken. Do not overbeat, or else it will become rubbery. When you have about 1 quart, add salt and pepper to taste. Then add a little bit of vinegar and watch the mayonnaise turn white.

JOAN'S CAESAR SALAD

Serves 10-12

Pour enough olive oil to coat 2 heads of romaine lettuce in a salad bowl. Crush 3 or 4 cloves of garlic in the oil. Then put leaf-sized pieces of romaine in oil and toss until each piece is lightly coated. In a small bowl, chop 3 soft-boiled eggs with about 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, and toss into salad. Add salt and juice from about 3 lemons to taste. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, add homemade croutons, give one last toss, and serve. Optional: anchovies.

Pour boiling water over bulgur and bouillon cubes. Stir and let stand 1-2 hours, or until light and fluffy. Add mint, scallions, parsley, and tomatoes. Beat lemon juice, oil, and salt and pepper and garlic powder together, and pour over bulgur mixture. Toss lightly and chill. To serve, place Tabbuleh in a mound in the center of a platter surrounded with romaine or grape leaves. Scoop salad onto leaves and eat, holding between 3 fingers.

Peel and crush the garlic. Make a paste with garlic, salt, beaten egg yolk, mustard, and 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice. Adding it 1 teaspoon at a time, beat in 1/2 cup olive oil (no substitutes). Add slowly and alternately another 1/2 cup olive oil and 2 tablespoons lemon juice (bit by bit). The most necessary thing is to add the oil very slowly and then beat thoroughly after each addition. This makes 1/2 pint of spicy, garlicky mayonnaise. Don't try to do it with a blender. It beats in too much air and the mayonnaise never thickens. We eat it on a salad of raw mushrooms and raw spinach, when we can get both.

Line a bowl with lettuce or very young spinach. Next, place a layer of cucumber, then a layer of onion rings, then some dressing. Repeat this process. Keep in refrigerator at least 1 hour. Serve with dark bread.

Peel and section oranges. Place in a bowl and chill. Beat . together oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic. Chill for 1 hour. Before serving, sprinkle oregano over oranges, and a little pepper. Remove garlic from dressing and pour over oranges and then garnish with mint.

Recipe Ingredient Notes

HONEY: Honey is the only nonalkaline sweetener known to man. It is a good relaxer. It is good for sore throats: mix with garlic (an antibiotic) and lemon (citrus . . . vitamin C) and spoon it into your mouth. Honey is sterile, so germs cannot live in it. If you get a bad burn, slap some honey on it until you can get to the old doc.

LEMONADE: Float a few lemon balms on top in the pitcher.

PEPPERMINT: Peppermint is good for upset stomachs, and good for morning sickness.

MARJORAM: Hang it in the window to keep bad witches away. Also use it as a good accent in sour cream. As a tea, it is good for tension headaches.

TANSY, BASIL, RUE: They are good fly repellents. Tansy sprinkled around the cracks in the floor, or in the cellar, will keep ants away.

CAMOMILE TEA: Use it for headaches, stomachaches, worms. It's also good as a hair rinse.

RUE AND THRIFT (CALLED SEA PINKS): Will expel worms.

MILK AND MEAT OF COCONUT: Coconut is a terrific laxative and is good for hemorrhoids. It is more effective than prunes, which give some people gas. By the way, if you have hemorrhoids, don't eat nuts or anything with small seeds (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, etc.).

POTATOES, ONIONS, APPLES ANDCARROTS: Do not store them together with each other. They give off gases which make other foods spoil faster.

DANDELIONS: Boil them in water, and use them for your skin. They're very good for it.

OATMEAL: Wash your face really well. Put oatmeal on your face. (You don't even have to cook it. Just add water.) Leave on your face until dry. Wash off with water and a tiny bit of milk. It makes your skin soft and smooth, tightens it removes oils.

CLOVES: Cloves are good to chew are good to chew on for healthy teeth.

BEES: Bees are enraged by the smell of new blue denim. Always wash any clothing made of new blue denim first before wearing outside, otherwise you run a big risk of being (bee-ing) stung. Beekeepers never wear denim on the job . . . most of them wear white.

ANISE: Mix with lard or shortening for lice.

AJUGA REPTANS: Also known as bugleweed, it is a common rock garden thing, often used in California as a ground cover. Mildly narcotic, resembles digitalis in action. Good for circulation.

BURNET: Used to control hemorrhages.

GARLIC: Antiseptic and antibiotic. Allicin is derived from it. It is said to be useful against scarlet fever, tuberculosis dysentery, and diphtheria.

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